%0 Journal Article
%T Bayesian inference for orbital eccentricities
%A L. B. Lucy
%J Physics
%D 2012
%I arXiv
%R 10.1051/0004-6361/201219819
%X Highest posterior density intervals (HPDI's) are derived for the true eccentricities of spectroscopic binaries with measured values e ~ 0. These yield upper limits when e is below the detection threshold e_th and seamlessly transform to upper and lower bounds when e > e_th. In the main text, HPDI's are computed with an informative eccentricity prior representing orbital decay due to tidal dissipation. In an appendix, the corresponding HPDI's are computed with a uniform prior and are the basis for a revised version of the Lucy-Sweeney test, with the previous outcome e = 0 now replaced by an upper limit. Sampling experiments with known prior confirm the validity of the HPDI's.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3462v3